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Welcome! Artfully Musing is a blog dedicated to sharing art and the techniques and products used. I'll be showcasing collage, altered and mixed media art as well as miniature. I hope you'll check back often and are inspired. Thanks for visiting! Laura

Saturday, March 26, 2016

SECRET GARDEN TUNNEL BOOK & NEW FLOWER FAIRIES COLLAGE SHEET

Spring is here in the desert where I
live. The little walled in courtyard in
the front of my house is my secret garden.
Here I plant all kinds of things that you don’t normally see in the desert. With lots of water, shade and protection from
the wild animals it is a small oasis of color.

Using my own special place as the springboard for a project, I created a secret garden tunnel book. This fantasy garden is hidden away behind a door and through a tunnel of ever smaller openings.As you look through the door you’ll see images peeking out through the openings on each page.Standing on the stairs are two children, wondering whether or not to enter, while the owl peers down at them.

Each part of the garden is unique and filled flowers and all kinds of flying creatures.

The first step is to create smaller and
smaller openings in each page based on the shape of the first pre-cut page. You can do this for as many pages as you
like. For this project I have 3 pages
with progressively smaller openings with a solid page for the last page.

I started by tracing the door opening
onto 2 of the chipboard pages.

Next, on one of the pages I measured ½ from
the bottom, sides and top trace lines. I
drew a line on the sides and bottom representing ½ from the original trace
line.For the top curve I penciled in a
dot.

I placed the page with the arch intersecting the dot and drew a line using the arch as the guide.

Below you see the arch drawn ½ away from
the original tracing.

On the second chipboard page I went
through the same procedure as I did for the first accept this time the
measurement is 1”.

Using an X-acto knife, I cutout the
center areas of each of the pieces. In
the picture below you see the original pre-cut page plus the two pages in which
I cut smaller holes and then the solid page in the back for a total of 4 pages.

For the spine I used on of the pages and
marked 3 lines 2” apart. The 2” will
allow for a 1” spine and two ½ “ tabs (used to attach the spines).I choose 1” for the spine so that I would
have room for bulky embellishments and also to help the book stand on it’s own.

After
cutting out the strips, I added a pencil line to each side of the strip that is ½ inch
from the edge. Using an X-acto knife I
very very gently scored the lines. If
you are unsure how deep to cut into the chipboard you might want to try it on an excess piece. You only want to cut slightly
into the chipboard so that it will bend but still hold together

Next, using paper clay and the lovely silicone mold you see below, I made decorative pieces for the spine.

Once dry, I glued the decorative pieces to
the spines and painted them with green acrylic paint.

I also painted the inside creases as you
might get a peek at them when the book is assembled.

Note that I didn’t color all of the tabs
on the inside or the outside as they will not be seen once the book is assembled. I just made sure that the outside of the
spines and the creases on the folds both inside and outside had color. I also added a strip of decorative paper to
the inside of the spine between the creases.

I prepped the first page of the book by
covering what will be the front side with decorative paper. Next, I attached the painted chipboard door using small hinges and brads.
I first glue the hinges in place, poke a hole for the brads and insert
the brads in place.

Also note that I have painted the door
in the same colors as the spine.

On the backside of the first page you
can see the prongs from the door brads.
Attach the first spine to the backside of the 1st page using
the tab on the spine.

Next, paper the backside of the 1st
page. The paper will cover the prongs
and the tab that was used to attach the page.

Next, attach the front of the un-papered
second page to the other tab on the spine piece. Now you should have the tabs on the spine
piece glued to the back of the first page and the front of the second
page.

Now cover the front of the 2nd
page with paper which hides the tab.

Next, attach the second spine to the
back of the second page. Cover the back
of the 2nd page with paper which hides the tab.

Continue in the same manner adding
however many spines and pages as you like.
Each spine should be attached between a set of 2 pages. Don’t put paper on the page (with the
exception of the front of the first page and the back of the last
page) until the spine is attached so that you can hide the tabs with the paper.

EMBELLISHMENTS

The biggest edition to the front of the
book is the chipboard steps that come in a kit and are easy to assemble. The steps are covered with decorative paper.The columns are from the Garden Columns collage sheet.To the background I added
the negative of a chipboard vine frame.I used the vine frame on another page.I added twiggy leaf garland and berries to each side. On the top is another paper
clay embellishment made with the silicone mold seen below.You’ll be seeing more projects in the future
using the two molds in this project and others.The owl, butterflies and snail all come from my collage sheets. You'll find the image of the children standing on the step further down in this post.

On the third page at the top is another
embellishment made from the silicone mold.
At the bottom is chipboard bridge.
The brown and white foliage the chipboard tree on
the right are from my stash. I used
beads on the tree as berries or fruit.
Once again you see another fairy on the bridge.

Below is the vine frame which I used on
the third page and as I mentioned earlier I used the negative piece on the
front.

The final page is the big reveal. In the background I used a frame from the
Elegant Frame digital image set. To make
the topiaries, I started with the Garden Urns collage sheet images, added a
wooden skewer (painted brown). Next, I
cutout 3 different sized chipboard circles and covered them with Flower Soft. The final touchs are the paper
flowers. You’ll also see more urns from
the collage sheet flanking each side of the column, filed with paper roses.

The focal point is made from two
pieces. The bottom is a plastic column
rubbed with Inca Gold Gilders Paste.The
top is a resin fountain also rubbed with Inca Gold Gilders Paste. By adding the gilders paste it made them look like they belonged together.

I glued the fountain onto the top of the column using E6000. At the top of the fountain is a hole that gave me a place to add ferns I cut from a piece of garland. By using the two pieces together it placed the fountain high enough that you can see it through the cutouts in the pages that come before it.

9 comments:

Laura this is absolutely beautiful !!! I absolutely adore your projects and this one is definitely a favourite. You add the most wonderful details, which can be viewed on every page of your beautiful garden journal.

Gorgeous, Laura!! As usual, the details amaze and inspire me. Love!! I used to live in NM and also had a "secret garden oasis" within the outside walls surrounding our little adobe home. So fun. xoxo sheila

I love tunnel books and you have created an especially beautiful one. I especially love all the three dimensionality of each of the panels. Just beautiful - thanks for sharing not only the project but how you created it

Oh WOW! How do you keep doing this??? Time and time again???? I wish I had your seemingly constant flow of creativity. As well as your engineering skillz.

Love everything about this...also love your secret garden! We should all have one of those!! Btw...I don't know if you know about this but, if you plant bulbs, there are little wire cages you can put the bulbs in and bury them in the ground. Predators can't get them and they grow through the wire. Here in NC they are a necessity for spring bulbs. Either a cage or a .22 But most people don't like gunshots at 5am so I stick with the cages. heh heh

What I love most about this post is not just your beautiful creation. No, it's your lovely garden! :) It's amazing how lush it looks, considering that you live in a dry desert climate. So very beautiful.